Cases In Monetary Halachah

You sat on someone’s glasses and broke them. Must you pay?

You set a trap for a trespasser and caught him -- but he was injured. Are you responsible?

Someone spoke a shidduch for you, and you are engaged! Mazel tov! How much must you pay the shadchan?

Your latecoming friend asks you to save him a seat at a lecture. Are you allowed to?

These are just a small sample of the everyday, practical questions that are answered in this book by Rabbi Tzvi Spitz, a dayan in Jerusalem. Well over a hundred such questions are discussed in this marvelously enlightening book. Rabbi Spitz is a great teacher as well as a judge. He poses the question, briefly gives the answer -- and then explains the Talmudic and Halachic reasoning behind the response.

This book will give the reader a fascinating and enlightening primer in the field of monetary Halachah. The reader will not become a rabbinic judge, but he will become knowledgeable and will gain important insight into the intricate logic of Choshen Mishpat, the section of Halachah that deals with monetary law and relations with others.

Some of the sections in this important new work are: Negligence; Renting, Borrowing, and Supervising; Assessment and Compensation; Employers and Employees; Partnerships; Neighborly Relations; Buying and Selling; and Returning Lost Objects. In short, there is something in this book for everyone -- and the guidelines the reader will derive from the discussions of these real-life cases will train him or her in how to conduct life according the Torah’s practical guidelines. Indeed, to do otherwise may well involve serious transgressions.

Above all, these are practical, down-to-earth discussions by a man who actually decides such dilemmas. It is not a Shulchan Aruch, but it certainly is a major guidebook in everyday life.

This book is an adventure and an education!